I overdid it this year at CMJ, breaking most of my rules of weeklong festival-going -- "don't forget to eat," "no booze after 1AM," "make time for a nap," -- and spent most of the week following in bed with a bad cold. I will probably not go back and recount all of this year's fest, but without a doubt my favorite band of the week was Pete & the Pirates who were so good at their first show of the week (10/21 at the Bell House) I ended up seeing them three more times during the course of CMJ. The band are so tight, so tunefull, so entertaining to watch (and not in a showy way) that I don't know how you could go away unimpressed. The Bell House show was the closest P&Ps did to a full show. They headlined, the crowd was genuinely pumped to see their first NYC show and seemed to know all the words, and we stomped and clapped until they sheepishly came back for an encore. But the best gig was probably at the Brooklyn Vegan day party at Pianos on Saturday (10/24) where they played with no monitors and almost in the dark. But again, the crowd was so into it, Pete & the Pirates lit up the room with their own energy. It was such a success, Pianos had them play again later in the day in the main room. The crowd was even into the three or four new songs the band tried out on us and I think we're all counting the days till we can hear them again -- whether it's a new album, or another visit to these shores. MP3: Pete & the Pirates - Jennifer
Here's video I shot of them doing "Bright Lights" from the Bell House gig:
I got in an discussion/argument with someone during last week's CMJ festival about recent Matador signees Cold Cave when I called them goth. "They're not goth," said a friend of mine to which I replied "Have you seen pictures of them? Have you heard them? They're goth." She replied, "Well, they're like 'indie goth.'" The distinction isn't missed on me. These days, to just be called "goth" is to damn your band to Cleopatra records, the label that for most of the '90s and early '00s was the only safe harbor for folks who cited Fields of the Nephilim and Sisters of Mercy as major influences. Not that there's anything wrong with Sisters of Mercy at all, but the bands that clung to goth after its heyday were just shadows. And all the subculture hoo ha that goes along with being goth these days. But ever since Interpol made melodramatic singing and wearing a holster onstage commercially viable again, bands have sought out the darker sides of postpunk as an influence while courting the cool kids. A lot of it is pretty good too. The difference is, I think, if you're looking to Bauhaus and Siouxsie (or P.I.L.) for inspiration, you're going to end up a much better band than those who say "I want to sound like The Bolshoi and Mission UK." I know there are other terms going around for all this. "Darkwave" to me is just as dumb-sounding as goth, so I still am just gonna use "goth." Or how about "kinda goth"? All these bands on this mix have some gothy elements to them: some are kinda goth (Violens, Crystal Stilts) and others are pretty much full-on goth (Cold Cave, Horrors and their little brother S.C.U.M.) but it's all pretty good. And it's nice to mix up the tunes on Halloween 'cause you can only listen to "This Corrosion" so many times. DOWNLOAD VAMPIRE BITES II: THE NEW BLOOD 1. Crystal Stilts - The Dazzled 2. S.C.U.M. - Visions Arise 3. Witch Hats - Hell Hole 4. Violens - Trance-Like Turn 5. TV Ghost - Cold Fish 6. Crocodiles - Soft Skull 7. Cold Cave - The Laurels of Erotomania 8. Fever Ray - Triangle Walks 9. Blank Dogs - Setting Fire to Your House 10. O.Children - Dead Disco Dancer 11. Zaza - Sooner or Later 12. The Horrors - Scarlet Fields 13. A Place to Bury Strangers - In Your Heart 14. Blacklist - Shock in the Hotel Falcon 15. The Mary Onettes - Void 16. Dum Dum Girls - Hey Sis 17. Duchess Says - A Century Old
Speaking of Sisters of Mercy, I thought I'd do another "classic goth" mix as well, as I do really love this stuff a lot. "This Corrosion" rivals "Bela Lagosi's Dead" for Ultimate Goth Song, and I am a bit conflicted about using the four-minute single edit here, but when your opening track is 10 minutes long, it means you have to cut other things. Where the first Vampire Bites mix from last year was All Hits, I delved a little deeper into the fringes (Virgin Prunes, Fad Gadget), included songs from bands who were never fully considered goth but definitely leaned that way at times (The Fall, Wire, The Wolfgang Press, P.I.L.), and even allowed myself to admit that maybe, just maybe, I liked one song each by Gene Loves Jezebel and Fields of the Nephilim.
1. Sisters of Mercy - This Corrosion 2. Siouxsie & the Banshees - Cities and Dust 3. Peter Murphy - Cuts You Up 4. Xymox - Obsession 5. The Wolfgang Press - The Holey Man 6. Echo & the Bunnymen - Zimbo 7. Public Image Limited - Careering 8. Wire - Ambitious 9. Bauhaus - She's in Parties 10. Fad Gadget - Back to Nature 11. The Fall - Riddler! 12. Fields of the Nephilim - Preacher Man 13. The Bolshoi - Happy Boy 14. Gene Loves Jezebel - Bruises 15. Killing Joke - Eighties 16. Virgin Prunes - Baby Turns Blue 17. Joy Division - Dead Souls 18. The Cure - A Forrest
And after many requests for it, I re-upped the first Vampire Bites goth mix -- an essential for any good Halloween party if I do say so myself. Like always, the songs segue together... so no shuffling or face eternal damnation.
This was the first day of Dum Dum Girls existence as a live band, but clearly they spent a lot of time working out the details, from the look -- bangs, gorgeous Silvertone guitars and bass, extremely short black dresses and stockings -- to the sound, which is somewhere between the Velvet Underground and '60s girl groups. It was an impressive debut, hot and cool at the same time. I kept thinking, "this is what the Velvet Underground might sound like if all the members were Nico."
Now technically Dum Dum Girls played before Saturday, at the Woodsist / Captured Festival, and some West Coast dates, each with different line-ups. Which could happen again. But this felt like the first real version. The Woodsist fest Dum Dum Girls featured Crocodiles' Brandon Welchez on guitar, Blank Dogs' Mike Sniper on Bass and Dee Dee (who is Dum Dum Girls on record and is married to Welchez) not donning a guitar. That version, which you can see video of, was much more a post punk / goth sort of sound; here the songs felt like a dream, an ethereal haze of reverbed guitars and pristine harmonies. An impressive debut.
Apart from Dee Dee, the only constant between the two line-ups is drummer Frankie Rose who brought some new beats to the mix, along with her signature driving motorik style she perfected in Vivian Girls and Crystal Stilts. She'll play some East Coast dates where Dum Dum Girls will open for King Kahn and the Shrines. She's old pals with Dee Dee, but Frankie's got her own band now so don't expect her to be a regular member.
Also, if you missed Dum Dum Girls on Saturday, they're playing tonight at Bruar Falls with Girls at Dawn (not bad when the opened for Fresh & Onlys recently) and Reading Rainbow. Now the BF website tries to be sly about it -- "EXTRA SPECIAL SMART SMART GUEST BAND" -- but both Girls at Dawn and Dum Dum Girls' have it on their MySpace pages, so the cat's officially out of the bag. MP3: Dum Dum Girls - Jail La La
Look for DDG's Sub Pop Debut sometime early 2010. Also at the show: Music Snobbery, Amrit of Stereogum, and the NY Times. A lot of people kept saying this would be hard to get into, but I think there were so many things going on Saturday night it kept attendance down.
One more interesting note. On my way into the city to head in for the Brooklyn Vegan day party on Saturday, I walk right past a Dum Dum Girls photo show under the JMZ. Of course, I snapped a quick pic:
Tour dates after the jump...
Dum Dum Girls 2009 Tour Dates
Oct 26 BRUAR FALLS w/ Reading Rainbow & Girls At Dawn Brooklyn, New York
Oct 28 PEARL STREET NIGHTCLUB w/ King Khan & BBQ Show Northampton, Massachusetts
Oct 29 MIDDLE EAST DOWNSTAIRS w/ King Khan & BBQ Show Cambridge, Massachusetts
Oct 30 BOWERY BALLROOM w/ King Khan & BBQ Show Manhattan, New York
Oct 31 BELL HOUSE w/ King Khan & BBQ Show Brooklyn, New York
Nov 1 FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH w/ King Khan & BBQ Show Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Nov 12 BELLY UP TAVERN w/ The Raveonettes & Crocodiles Solana Beach, California
Nov 28 SPACELAND
Zoos of Berlin are from Detroit and are fronted by Trevor Naud who also spent time (maybe still does) in the notoriously unprolific but occasionally awesome Pas/Cal. Unlike that band's sunshine pop, Zoos of Berlin are more buttoned up and immaculate, like a high society tea... but one that desperately wants to be disco-fest. Naud and turtleneck-wearing bassist Daniel Clark keep it regal, but drummer Colin Dupuis and, especially, keyboardist Will Yates are there to party. The result is like a weird mix of Cardinal and Steely Dan, a combination that is perfected on "Electrical Way" which has Yates laying down a super-funky Clavinet part over most of the song, with a breakdown which is straight out of "Peg." And it just sounds awesome, such good musicianship overcoming the deficiencies of Market Hotel's PA, where they played a few weeks ago.
And here's video of said song from their recent Market Hotel show:
And some upcoming shows:
Oct 23 Anton Art Center [free costume party] Mt. Clemens, Michigan
Nov 6 Crofoot Ballroom [w/ Black Heart Procession & Thunderbirds Are Now!] Pontiac, Michigan
Nov 19 Detroit Science Center [playing in front of the IMAX!] Detroit, Michigan
Nov 25 The Blind Pig [w/ Great Lakes Myth Society] Ann Arbor, Michigan
Dec 4 The Majestic Cafe [The Recital’s final show, also w/ Thunderbirds Are Now!] Detroit, Michigan
It's kind of amazing to think that before this week Fanfarlo's only other New York show was at last year's CMJ, at LES club Fat Baby which holds about 50 people and was not full when they played. Less than a year later, with absolutely zero coverage from Pitchfork (I mean nothing, do a search) the London band sells out Bowery Ballroom and brings a big crowd to Bell House (deep in Brooklyn) the next night. A big part of this is having a stellar album, Resevoir, which the band sold online for One Dollar for nearly a month. But it's also their deserved reputation as a swoon-worthy live band. Their SXSW performance at Austin's Central Presbyterian Church will make my Best Shows of 2009, but the Bell House show comes close. Apparently there were technical difficulties (of the tuning variety) for a stretch but I didn't notice, what with the trumpets, glockenspiels, melodicas, violins, musical saws, and other accents. My only complaint is the set was too short, barely an hour, and no pre-album singles like "Fire Escape," "We Live by the Lake" or "You Are One of the Few Outsiders That Understand Us." There was, however, melting moments like "Comets" and "Luna" which closed out the set. MP3: Fanfarlo - Luna (buy it) We also got a cover of Neutral Milk Hotel's "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" which might have been just a bit too on-the-nose for a band that already draws comparisons to Arcade Fire and Beirut (which are superficial, Fanfarlo have their own thing going), but I thought it was lovely nonetheless.
If you were unable to attend one of Fanfarlo's shows this week, don't fret, NYCers. They'll be back in a month for CMJ, where they're playing two shows so far, both on October 20: a Music Slut day party at Pianos, and then that night at the Brooklyn Vegan showcase at Music Hall of Williamsburg. I would not be surprised to see them play a few more later in the week. In other related news, Fanfarlo were augmented live on this tour by multi-talented Jeremy Warmsley, who is well-known within the new London folk scene (or is that the London new folk scene) that has also set forth Emmy the Great, Laura Marling, the Wave Pictures, Lightspeed Champion and others. I really like his new album, How We Became, which came out early this year on Transgressive. (He's also got a new band, Acre's Acres, which he says should only be pronounced in an American accent.) He's sticking around the city an extra day to play a solo acoustic show at Pianos tonight. He's on at 8PM, though Pianos has never been known for sticking to schedules. MP3: Jeremy Warmsley - How We Became (buy it)
Honestly, I wasn't expecting all the moshing and crowd surfing. I'd hopped in a cab seconds after seeing Wild Beasts for a third time in one week and headed to Market Hotel to see Seattle's finest purveyors of bent surf garage. On record, The Intelligence are genuinely weird, like they try and make normal music and this is what comes out. It's not dissimilar to what Sic Alps or Thee Oh Sees do, but there's a sinister edge, kind of like in a David Lynch movie. Slightly uncomfortable. But live, Lars Finberg and the rest of The Intelligence are here to rock. Market Hotel didn't seem that crowded to me, but when the second song kicked in it was a like a mosh magnet, everyone who was still there rushed towards the stage and collectively lost their shit. In particular, Golden Triangle's OJ (the band had just played) was a crowd surfing dynamo, despite there not being quite enough crowd to hold him. No matter how many times he got dropped, OJ kept getting back up there. "Let's see how many people get hurt on this one," a perplexed Finberg joked during the encore. The guy might have bruises all over his body now, but Friday night that little dude was all smiles. Finberg kept asking the crowd if we could he his vocals -- we could I thought they sounded great -- but judging by that I don't think they could hear anything. Sometimes you just move forward via instinct and muscle memory. The Intelligence play Cake Shop tonight. Somehow I doubt a Sunday Night crowd will be as whacked-out as Friday's all-ages Market Hotel scene, but who can say for sure? Highly recommended. You can watch Mad Men tomorrow. MP3: The Intelligence - Moody Little Tower
Buy some Intelligence via Insound. Or buy some at the merch table tonight. I shot a lot of video Friday night but a lot of it didn't come out so well as I was constantly in fear of head injuries via someone's boot. Anytime the camera veers away from the stage, it's because of that. Those videos and all the Intelligence's remaining
The Intelligence on tour:
Sep 13 cake shop new york, New York Sep 14 live on viva radio new york, New York Sep 14 live on wnyu new york, New York Sep 16 cafe nine new haven, Connecticut Sep 17 sonar balitmore, Maryland Sep 18 comet pizza and ping pong washington dc, Washington DC Sep 19 the triple richmond, Virginia Sep 20 the new french bar asheville, North Carolina Sep 21 jj's bohemia chattanooga, Tennessee Sep 22 instore at criminal records atlanta, Georgia Sep 22 the earl atlanta, Georgia Sep 23 club down under tallahassee, Florida Sep 24 alabama music box mobile, Alabama Sep 25 hi tone/gonerfest 6 memphis, Tennessee Sep 26 saturn bar new orleans, Louisiana Sep 28 spanish moon baton rouge, Louisiana Sep 29 the ten eleven san antonio, Texas Oct 1 la sala rossa montreal, Quebec Oct 2 mohawk austin, Texas Oct 3 handsome kitten dallas, Texas Oct 4 the conservatory oklahoma city, Oklahoma Oct 5 record bar kansas city, Kansas Oct 6 medowlark denver, Colorado Oct 7 meow wolf santa fe, New Mexico Oct 8 club congress tucson, Arizona Oct 9 modifided phoenix, Arizona Oct 10 bujwha el centro, California Oct 11 part time punks festival @ the echo los angeles, California Oct 12 the casbah san diego, California Oct 13 the hub sacramento, California Oct 15 house of nostromos oakland, California Oct 16 elbow room san francisco, California Oct 17 garage/vice scion festival portland, Oregon
I was about to give up on MOJO. The magazine always has always covered current musicians, but they usually kept them off the covers in favor of historical pieces on important albums and musicians of yore. And they never do a broad overview of said bands, they can make an interesting story on the recording of one song. This means there's rarely a year without at least one Beatles, Stones and Who cover story. (2005 is the only year without featuring John, Paul, George or Ringo.) But lately there's been a lot more New Artists getting the cover and we had three in a row: Kings of Leon, Fleet Foxes and Arctic Monkeys. (The KoL was the one that pissed me off.) So I was, for once, happy to see the Beatles -- again -- on the cover of the October issue of MOJO.
Now I know we're all kind of sick of the Beatles at this point. Well, I am, what with the remastered CDs, Beatles Rock Band, Pitchfork's all-Beatles reviews week (10.0 for Magical Mystery Tour? Maybe without "All You Need is Love") and every magazine doing stories on it all. Not to mention the Fab Four are the most overplayed, over-analyzed band in history. But MOJO does it better. Jon Savage goes to Abbey Road to get first-hand look at the remastering process, and there's an excellent story on the making of Abbey Road, including a new interview with Paul McCartney. Plus this issue comes with a CD, Abbey Road Now!, where they got 16 different band to re-record the album. Which means Jeffrey Lewis taking on "Octopus' Garden," Cornershop doing "Mean Mr. Mustard/Polythene Pam," Gomez tackle "Sun King" and Robyn Hitchcock doing a song I bet he likes a lot, "I Want You (She's So Heavy)." As you might expect, many of the covers are on the wrote side, with the artists not daring to break out of the Beatles' arrangements. (I'm looking at you, Glenn Tillbrook.)
For instance, I was really hoping that The Low Anthem's version of "Her Majesty" would be, like, ten minutes long, but nope, it stays at 29 seconds. Mercury Prize losers The Invisible do a tripped-out dance take on "Come Together," Let's Wrestle do have some fun with what is one of the Beatles worst songs, "Maxwell's Silver Hammer," Robyn Hitchcock (who clearly sees Lennon as an influence) adds his own weird charm (and a musical saw) to "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" and The Leisure Society bring their tinkly vibe to Harrison's "Something." But I think Blue Roses' take on "Golden Slumbers" may be the best thing on the disc. Musically, it's pretty reverential, but Laura Groves does some mind-blowing harmonies here, not unlike Dirty Projectors, and I wanted it to go on much longer than it did.
The October MOJO is one of the best issues the magazine has produced in some time. We also get an article on Prefab Sprout's "new" album, Let's Change the World WIth Music, which was actually recorded in 1992 and never released till now; an article on the making of the new Cribs album with Johnny Marr; a look at Mike Oldfield's enduing '70s opus Tubular Bells; plus Bunny Wailer, some never before seen Who photos, a review of Richard Hawley's new CD and a brief visit with LCD Soundsystem in LA where they've rented a mansion, hired a private chef and are all wearing white (all to save money, claims Murphy).
Despite having seen a short performance during South By Southwest, Wild Beasts had me confounded from the start at Joe's Pub. Two vocalists, and I knew -- on paper -- that guitarist Hayden Thorpe sang the falsetto's and the bassist Tom Flemming was responsible for vocals in what you'd call the more normal register. But they kept switching instruments between songs, to the point where I wasn't sure if I'd previously worked out which parts were sung by one person and which were by the other, despite who was playing bass or guitar at any given time.
It was around that point that I decided it was dumb to try and figure it out (even though I think I'm straight now). Wild Beasts' magic is in the interplay between the four members, and it's best just to think of them as one slithering unit. Vocals exchange between Flemming and Thorpe like twins, and the guitar lines snake around one another, bass pulses and ebbs, while drummer Chris Talbot (the band's secret weapon) gives most songs a tribal feel -- lots of toms, not so much cymbals. Nobody stood still for a second, Thorpe and Flemming swinging and swaying, hooting and howling. A bit more "rock" than the versions on new album Two Dancers (Talbot plays a little more four-on-the-floor live) but if it's subtleties are missing, it's made up in a mesmerizing group performance. Seriously good, bordering on great, if a bit short at an encore-less 45 minutes. MP3: Wild Beasts - All the King's Men (buy it from Domino) You've got two more chances to see Wild Beasts. Thursday (9/10) at Mercury Lounge and Friday (9/11) at Union Pool. I shot video of current single "All the King's Men" and though it looks like I pointed my camera at a TV monitor, I did not.
Wild Beast's second album, Two Dancers, is out today in the U.S. and you should get it -- it's pretty brilliant. Mixing a variety of post punk influences with the very distinctive vocals of guitarist Hayden Thorpe and bassist Tom Flemming. Most reviews of Wild Beasts tend to focus on Thorpe, whose pipes are kind of like a less sad bastard version of Antony's. A bit of an aquired taste, but I think it's rather tempered here, at least compared to last year's debut, Limbo Panto. But all the talk of shrieking doesn't leave much time to talk about the music, which is slinky, sexy, understated and anchored by an incredible rhythm section -- seriously, the drumming here is out-of-this-world. On tracks like "All the Kings Men," "We Still Got the Taste Dancing on Our Tongues" and the title track they're almost like a new pop cabaret version of The Sound or The Chameleons. Two Dancers will definitely be on my Best of 2009 list.
Wild Beasts are in town this week playing three shows, the first of which is tonight at Joe's Pub. They also play Mercury Lounge on Thursday (tickets) and Union Pool on Friday (no advance tickets, unfortunately). It's a busy week for shows, but you should definitely make room for Wild Beasts.
Where did it go? Summer's over folks. Yes I know it doesn't technically end till September 21 but Labor Day signifies the end of the season. Back to school, network TV shows less crappy reality shows, we can start eating oysters again without fear. And so finishes 13 weeks of mixes from yours truly. Like last year, I decided to make the last one a double, divided into day (pop) and night (dance, or at least "dance-y" you be the judge). I hope you made the most of the summer and enjoyed these. Art for the Day mix was done by my most frequent contributor, Kate Bryant, who did the first mix of Summer 2009. It reeks of Summer In Brooklyn, don't you think? The art for the Night mix was done by me, in my living room, using a long shutter on the camera and the LED light on my cable remote as a pen. This will be my last opportunity to remind you that these mixes are actually mixed together, the songs blend, so no shuffle please. It will sound jarring and unpleasing to the ear. And nobody needs that. Have a great long weekend.
1. The Cribs - We Share the Same Skies
2. The Hidden Cameras - The Na
3. Adventures in Stereo - You Hurt Me More Than You Know
4. Bye Bye Bicycle - Navigation
5. JEFF the Brotherhood - Bone Jam
6. The Wedding Present - It's a Gas
7. The High Dials - My Heart is Pinned to Your Sleeve
8. Tap Tap - Codeine
9. Hospitality - Liberal Arts
10. Kings of Convenience - Mrs. Cold
11. Virgin Sleep - Love
12. Atlas Sound w/ Laetitia Sadier - Quick Canal
13. Pastels/Tenniscoats - Vivid Youth
14. Princeton - I Left My Love in Nagasaki
15. Your Twenties - Billionaires
16. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Higher Than the Stars
17. The Magnetic Fields - The Sun Goes Down and the World Goes Dancing
18. The Kinks - Autumn Almanac
Summer Fridays 2.13 Night tracklist:
1. Bent - Invisible Pedestrian
2. The Weathermen - Poison
3. Friendly Fires - Kiss of Life
4. Jack Penate - Everything is New
5. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Higher Than The Stars (Saint Etienne visits Lord Spank Remix)
6. Metronomy - Not Made For Love (Astronomer Remix)
7. OMD - Genetic Engineering
8. Zoot Woman - Just a Friend of Mine
9. Delorean - Seasun
10. Pop Will Eat Itself - Another Man's Rhubarb
11. Stardeath & White Dwarfs - Return to the Sun
12. Dan Black - Alone
13. The Golden Silvers - True Romance (True No. 9 Blues)
14. Super Furry Animals - The Very Best of Neil Diamond
15. Caribou - Lord Leopard
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